


Friends

by TheGrinningKitten



Series: His Story [3]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Implied/Referenced Incest, Just a bunch of friends fixing others' mistakes, M/M, Negative!Dream, Scar!Ink, Tail!Error, side Nightmare/Error, what could go wrong?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-25
Packaged: 2021-03-14 14:35:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29543859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheGrinningKitten/pseuds/TheGrinningKitten
Summary: A note from the translator:"His Story" is actually a series of stories in nature. However, originally, all of its stories were posted as one single fic, but due to AO3's capabilities, the translated stories are separated into actual fics under the same series.The preface by the author (which was originally a separate chapter) is available onthe main page of the "His Story" series.Thank you for your attention and enjoy!
Relationships: Dream & Error & Ink
Series: His Story [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2124066
Comments: 34
Kudos: 58





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Его история (История 3 - Друзья)](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/762804) by Elena Troitskaya (Sariko). 



> **A note from the translator:**
> 
> "His Story" is actually a series of stories in nature. However, originally, all of its stories were posted as one single fic, but due to AO3's capabilities, the translated stories are separated into actual fics under the same series.
> 
> The preface by the author (which was originally a separate chapter) is available on [the main page of the "His Story" series](https://archiveofourown.org/series/2124066).
> 
> Thank you for your attention and enjoy!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter: mentions of suicide.
> 
> Special thanks to [Neutralcybertrn](https://twitter.com/Neutralcybertrn) for beta-reading this chapter!

“I’m telling you, you’re wrong!” Agitated, Tail was moving all of his limbs about, looking most like a scarecrow that was accidentally brought to life.

“And how am I wrong, if I may ask?” Scar crossed his arms. He was already fairly tired of arguing, but he was too stubborn to let it go.

“You’re wrong because you don’t believe that there will be changes during this cycle! Blue and Ink will end up together for sure! Look! They’re made for each other!” Tail was pointing at the window to KamiTale, where yet another divine drama was unfolding. “See? Blue is blushing like crazy, and he almost managed to liven up that emotionless potato!”

“Hey!” Scar took offence to that.

“Oh, sorry. You’re such a jerk that I keep forgetting you’re an Ink too.” The black skeleton huffed and thumped his tail against the floor.

“I’m offended on behalf of potatoes.” Scar winked at him with his only good eye. “They’re way more emotional than that individual. Have you seen his face when he was talking about _you_ fucking him?”

“That was Kami!Error and not me.” Tail looked embarrassed. “We might both be Errors, but we’re nothing alike. You know that I’m…”

“...a kind bastard. Yeah, I know.”

“Shut up, both of you!” Negative snapped. The black tentacles flared up above him and vibrated, ready to beat up or stab the blabbermouths. “I’m trying to watch the show!”

“Sorry!” Tail and Scar wailed in unison and returned to watching their favorite universe.

KamiTale was a restricted kind of universe with a spiral timeline — a pretty rare and interesting type of worlds. Since it was a restricted universe, visiting it was highly discouraged — and that was a tough task even for wayfarers: it was a hell of a task to break in and a hell of a task to break out. On the plus side, it was a very interesting world to watch.

Spiral universes were a delight to watch in general — like a favorite show that reliably got renewed season after season. Such a show could never grow boring, since with every new cycle of the spiral new details would weave themselves into the story. Sometimes they were negligible, and sometimes they could change the story at its core.

The latter was extremely rare though.

The story of KamiTale, for example, had already been going on for dozens of thousands of years without any significant changes — and one cycle of the story lasted for two hundred years. The “before” was lost behind the shroud of ambiguity, and the “after” was hidden in the haze of never-to-happen. It was all a series of repetitions that only one of the world’s characters noticed. Fresh. The guy was insane though and couldn’t change a thing. A pity!

Scar and Tail continued to bicker but kept their voices low, yet Negative still snapped at their neverending squabbles. Now _this_ was a cycle: one argument after another.

Suddenly, everyone fell silent.

“Huh. That’s funny.” Negative frowned, tense.

“I don’t see how it’s funny.” Scar bristled.

“This was kinda sudden.” Tails smiled nervously.

All three of them turned their heads towards the pathway that snapped into existence nearby, opening its crooked maw in invitation, beckoning for visitors to come to an unknown Multiverse.

The friends shared a look and tried to express with their faces alone what they all thought about such a sudden invitation to hell knows where.

“Whoever’s on the other side, they have impeccable aim,” Negative noted, squinting at Tail. “They not only hit a residential area — they almost got exactly the person they need.”

Tail shrunk. He remembered his only experience as a guest well — and it wasn’t a fond memory. He didn’t want a repeat of that story.

“Are they in need of Error?” Scar asked, watching the pathway with disgust in his eyes. “Then let them resurrect their own. They can have a necromancer assist them. Or their Reaper.”

“Do you think they too killed their own destroyer?” Tail wrapped his fifth limb around his body and seemed to shrink, looking even thinner and more fragile than usual.

“I’m sure of it.” Negative sneered. “You black ones tend to have some nasty endings in general. Either you get killed, or you kill yourselves.”

Scar clicked his tongue, walked up to the pathway and looked inside it as if it was possible to see where it ended. The pathway looked like an endless dark intestine leading into terra incognita.

The trio shared a look, then looked around. The light zone they were in was tiny. Someone insightful left a couch in this spot of light and put up a “Transit point” sign. There wasn’t any space left for anything else here — and, naturally, there was no one else around.

Which meant that the fate for a whole Multiverse hinged solely on their decision.

“In any case, I’m not letting Tail go in there alone. He’d been through enough during his last guest visit. Besides, I don’t see a single reason to respond to their cries anyway. Let ‘em die.” Scar fumed.

Negative completely supported this stance. Tail, on the other hand, kept shifting from one foot to another and sighing plaintively. His whole body language screamed of how upset he was to know that he could’ve helped but refused to do it. To top it off, he kept throwing _those_ kinds of glances — the kind an upset cat gives to its owner, as they approach it with a slipper in their hand.

“Stars! Tail, hasn’t your last experience taught you anything?” Scar held his head in his hands.

“But last time I didn’t have you two with me,” the other reasoned.

“Hah! Our cutie’s got a point!” Negative walked up to the pathway, and his grin grew wider. “Let’s have some fun, guys. And if they try to give us trouble, they’ll be _begging_ for Nothing to come — sniveling and crying for him! That I can promise.”

Scar hesitantly walked up to the pathway and looked into its dark depths, then shrugged and jumped in first.

“Geronimooo!” echoed the scar-covered commando’s cry from inside the pathway.

“What a psycho.” Negative cringed and jumped in Scar.

Tail shook his head in disbelief: “And _they_ were the ones against the idea,” and joined his friends.

***

On the other side of the pathway stood Ink, Dream, Blue and a few scientists from various AUs. At first, all of them were staring at the dark intestine of the tunnel in hesitation, gathering their courage to step into the unknown. Then their hesitation was replaced by fear.

“Someone stepped into the pathway from the other side!” a scientist cried.

Everyone got armed. The only thing the residents of this Multiverse knew about the mysterious space they opened a pathway to, was that they could find a replacement for their destroyer there. Who could’ve known his existence was so important for their Multiverse?

However, the new arrival wasn’t an Error they were waiting for — but another Ink. The newcomer was all covered in scars and wore messy clothes and a terrifying grin wide enough to nearly split his face in half. He summoned a giant fountain pen — his alternative to the iconic paintbrush — before he even exited the pathway. The pen was clearly a dangerous weapon, what with all the loops of metal on it and the sharp tip it had. And now this new Ink brought this weapon forward, pointing it at the Ink of this Multiverse. He ignored everyone else.

“Well, well, well!” he chuckled. “Same faces, same sins. Disgusting. Got all your traps ready, huh? Well, aren’t you scared your clever trap won’t be big enough for the bird you’ve caught?”

The residents of the Multiverse tensed, but before anyone could even try to explain themselves, someone else sauntered out of the pathway, shocking them even more. It was a Dream, covered in negativity. He crossed his arms with a look of someone who owned this place, and looked over the terrified monsters as if he was appraising animals in a market. His tentacles writhed like worms behind his back.

“I see, you’ve already made quite an impression,” he chuckled, taking a spot next to Scar and glaring at his goodie-two-shows alternate self. Dream paled at the image of himself in Nightmare’s role, and struggled not to faint.

The residents were in for yet another surprise though. One final guest came out of the pathway: the one they were searching for — but not the kind they thought they’d find. The Error turned out to be tall and fragile-looking, had a tail and seemed much too nervous. He stared at the residents, as if he expected them to bury him alive.

With a deep sigh, Tail stood next to his friends, and suddenly the two looked a lot less like gangsters and a lot more like guardians taking their charge for a walk. Negative and Scar both stood in front of the Error, forcing him back, behind them, a little.

A heavy silence fell upon them. No one dared to start this conversation, and no one wanted to be the first to attack.

Tail gulped. He was so nervous that his voice kept glitching as he asked, “Do you need help?”

“Yes, we need your help.” Ink lowered his paintbrush. The others followed suit.

The guests were the last ones to put away their weapons, and they remained in place, standing between Tail and the others.

“Ha! They need help, huh?” Negative sneered. “Let me guess. You killed your destroyer, right?”

The guardians shared a look. Dream’s face fell. The other two looked away.

“I’m afraid, you’re right.” Ink didn’t bother dodging the question. What good would that do anyway? “It was an accident.”

“And whatever do you mean by ‘accident’, my dear alternate self? Was it your ruthlessness on the battlefield or your general negative attitude towards people who’re busy doing the thankless job of cleaning out the worlds? Oh! I bet everyone wished for Error’s death! I bet you even threw a party when it happe—”

“Scar, enough!” The Error cut off his friend with a loud thump of his tail against the stone floor. “I’ll take a look.”

Oh, there sure was a lot to see there. Tail quickly put on a pair of glasses, surrounded himself with a bunch of console windows, checked out the root folders, dived into diagrams — and the more he read, the more his expression changed from one of fear to one of terror. He started to eye the open maw of the pathway like a drowning man would a life-saving raft.

“Scar, Negative, you need to see this.”

With how tense Tail sounded, his friends instantly forgot all about precautions and turned towards the open panel he was showing them. They leaned over it as they whispered among themselves. Soon it was all three of them eyeing the pathway.

“This place is screwed…”

“Agreed.” Negative winced. “It’s way beyond our capabilities. I don’t see how Nothing could’ve missed this Multiverse — but I can tell Annihilator hasn’t been here. He would’ve put this place in order.”

“Maybe, it only got so bad in recent years?” Tail guessed. “This Multiverse is vast — and it’s the type that expands to boot. These are common in many clusters.”

“But not in this one.” Scar shook his head. “Besides, the expanding types can exist without massive world clean-ups — as long as the balance of powers remains in place. Bringing such a Multiverse to ruin… That’s one hell of an achievement.”

“Well, these idiots sure did their best!” Negative snapped and glared at the locals, who kept tensely waiting for their decision. “I’m sure they did everything in their power to achieve that.”

Tail shrugged off his friends’ arguments and went back to examining the code. Then he closed the windows, defeat written on his face.

“Nope, this is not a job I can handle. This is a balance-related problem, so they need a resilient destroyer to become a permanent resident here,” he explained. “I’m not staying, and I’m an editor. My work is easier and more delicate. Besides,” he lowered his voice, “I don’t want to become a murderer again — even if I’d be saving more lives than I’d be taking.”

Scar nodded and turned to face the locals: “Hear that? We can’t help you. Find some other idiots.”

“Please!!!” Ink fell to his knees at their feet. “At least try to help us! I’m begging you!”

Scar cringed, watching his kneeling alternate. He didn’t enjoy knowing that there was a version of him capable of falling so low. Then all the other locals in the room followed Ink’s example, and Scar facepalmed, slapping his other hand on top of the first one for extra effect.

The ever-power-hungry Negative, however, appreciated this approach. “If they start chanting my name, I’ll start trying to persuade you to reconsider,” he warned.

Tail regarded the pleading monsters with pity but didn’t waver. “The most I can do is fuse branching timelines together. After all, I’m an editor, not a destroyer. This won’t solve the problem, only delay the inevitable. I can’t help here.” Poorly-concealed pain seeped into his voice.

“But you want to?” Scar got what his friend was implying.

“My Multiverse was one of the expanding types too, you know.” Tail grimaced, vainly trying to force out a smile.

Scar looked down awkwardly and whispered, “That’s not a good reason. There are billions of such Multiverses, and I don’t see you hurrying to their aid.”

“I’m not in a hurry to help this one either. It’s just… You know,” the Error’s tail swayed from side to side, “back when my Multiverse was dying, it was in about the same state as this one.”

Negative, who’d been quietly listening to them this whole time, sighed and said, “There’s nothing saying we can’t give it a try. But if we fail, Tail, I will personally beat the sadness out of you with these very tentacles!” He held up the aforementioned limbs.

“And, like you’ve said,” Scar smiled, “you didn’t have us before. We can do this, pal. We’ll buy these idiots some time, and maybe they’ll actually make good use of it.”

Tail beamed: “Let’s give it a try! Perhaps, with all three of us working together, we’ll be able to stabilize the existing worlds until another expansion. There’ll be tons of free space then. We just have to do that before the expansion happens, or everything will implode.”

“Okay then,” Negative pointed at the black skeleton, “you’re in charge. You tell us what to do and how.”

“Okay.” Tail easily agreed to become the leader.

“Dibs on the role of the bodyguard,” Scar piped up.

“As if you ever aren’t one.” Negative snorted. “There’s lots of work to be done, so you’ll have to juggle things.”

The locals were still keeling on the floor, not daring to get up, as they listened to their guests’ conversation. They couldn’t believe their luck. Were they going to be saved?

Sci was the first one to get off his knees. He dusted his lab coat and asked, “So you’re going to help us?”

“We’re going to help _your Multiverse_ ,” Negative corrected him. “We don’t give a flip about what happens to the residents.”

“That’s a ‘yes’,” Tail translated. “But there’s a lot of work to be done, and we’re not sure if we’ll be able to do this.”

“However, we have a few conditions, and failure to respect them will rip our cooperation to bloody shreds!” Scar growled. “Now remember! The pathway to Zero Infinity stays open. If you Multiverse ends up dying, we have no intention of sharing your fate. Secondly, don’t try to fight us! If we say the world has to go down, it goes down without any arguing. Thirdly, ideally, we don’t want to interact with any of you at all. So don’t mess with us! If I see anyone get too close, I’ll kill them first and ask questions later. Got it?!”

The locals nodded.

“Then get the hell out!”

A moment later they all spilled out of the room and into the hallway.

Ink slid down a wall like a shot down soldier. He even left a trail behind, though one of sweat and not of blood. He hadn’t expected anything like this to happen. To be honest, the guardian hadn’t expected the pathway — one they opened to hell knows where — to bring help to them — in the shape of his alternate, a Nightmare-Dream and a very strange Error no less.

“How are you feeling?” Dream sat down beside him.

“Like I’ve just lost my soul for the second time,” the artist confessed. “I knew there were other Multiverses and other Inks and Errors out there, but… but…”

“You didn’t think they’d be anything like this?” Blue prompted. The kid wearing a blue scarf sat down next to Ink as well, smiling awkwardly. “I’m kinda glad that we didn’t get a visit from my alternate self. After getting a glimpse of yours, I’m afraid to even imagine what I would’ve ended up like under different circumstances.”

The friends shuddered. The negative Dream and the angry Ink shocked them to their cores.

“I wonder why that Error is so…” Ink struggled to find the right word — and he decided to hold off on comparing him to a kitten with broken paws.

“Kind.” Blue offered a fitting description. “I was surprised by that too. He has more in common with me than with Error.”

Dream chuckled: “You know what? You’re right. He really has a lot more in common with Blue. He has to be a sweetheart too then.”

“I just hope they actually came to help and not to destroy our Multiverse,” Blue shuddered. The negative Dream and the angry Ink scared the hell out of him.

Dream nodded in agreement, then addressed the young guardian with: “Could you keep an eye on our sleepyhead?”

Blue tentatively nodded: “Yeah, sure,” and exited through a portal.

The remaining duo of guardians pressed themselves against the door, listening in on their guests’ discussion on the other side of it. Pressing so close to the door wasn’t really necessary though: Scar had his voice at max volume, and he wasn’t being picky with his words either.

Once Scar was done with the initial loud emotional outburst, he finally calmly asked: “Okay, what are your suggestions?”

“We create a chain reaction.” Tail looked up from the panels he was working with. “It has to work, and then it’ll free up about twenty percent of available space. And if it doesn’t work, then our only option would be making our escape with our tails between our legs.”

Negative tsked and asked: “Will we be able to return to Zero Infinity without a pathway?”

“Well, do we have wayfarers among us?”

Scar and Negative both looked at Tail, who shrugged habitually. He had no idea whether he was a wayfarer or not anymore. He wasn’t fond of his special powers and avoided using them if he could help it.

“So one of us will have to stay behind and protect the pathway just in case the ‘grateful’ locals decide to pocket us — or Zero Infinity might consider us undeserving of its belly and leave us here.”

“I doubt it.” Scar made a face. “You know well enough: what’s been there once, it tends to keep pulling back. So it’ll recover us sooner or later anyway, unless we establish ourselves here.”

“Better sooner than later,” Negative noted, frowning. “Who knows what ideas the locals might come up with.”

Tail gulped. He still had vivid memories of the ideas the residents of a different Multiverse had back when he tried to help them. The memories of the pain and humiliation he’d had to live through still echoed in his bones.

“If they do get any ideas, I’m kicking those right outta them,” Scar promised and gave Tail a pat on the head. “Don’t fret. They won’t hurt you, nor will they get to keep you. You’re ours. We’ve promised that we won’t let you get hurt — and we keep our promises.”

“Thanks.” An awkward smile graced Tail’s face. “Okay, so how are we doing in terms of portals? Can we use them to navigate this Multiverse?”

All three of them gave it a try. Smoke billowed out of Negative’s portal. Scar’s portal exploded. Tail’s portal was extremely glitchy and unstable, and none of them wanted to test it: there was no telling whether it was safe or it would split their bodies over different AUs.

It didn’t take them long to find a solution though. Scar sneaked up to the door and abruptly pulled it open. The eavesdropping guardians fell into the room, forming a messy pile of bones on the floor.

“So, how do you feel about helping us save the world?”

The guardians assumed the expressions of happy idiots and nodded like bobble-heads.

“Well, if so…” Scar reluctantly pointed at Ink. “You’re coming with us. Only you.”

“But why?”

“Because we don’t trust you,” Tail admitted.

Negative snorted and said: “You go have fun, rescue squad, and I’m gonna stay here and have a chat with — heh — this boyscout here.” Negative fixed Dream with a hateful look. “Gonna tell him a few bedtime stories — enough to give him nightmares for years to come. Heh-heh-heh!”

Dream was about to beg the “rescue team” to take him with them, but Scar had already kicked the artist through a portal, and he and Tail were quick to follow. The tip of the black tail waved them goodbye.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to [Neutralcybertrn](https://twitter.com/Neutralcybertrn) for beta-reading this chapter!

The world they teleported to wasn’t all that different from the original. The local Flowey was stronger and bolder, and the final human hadn’t fallen into the Underground yet — or maybe they weren’t going to fall at all.

“Since you’ve been eavesdropping, you already know what the plan is,” Scar said to his kinder alternate.

“No,” Ink said, catching him off guard. “I don’t understand what that plan of yours is.”

Scar facepalmed: he had an embarrassingly high amount of stupid alternate selves, it seemed.

Tail took it upon himself to explain: “We want to try provoking a chain reaction.” When Ink’s expression told him that the artist still had no idea what he was talking about, he clarified: “We will attempt to merge identical worlds into one. Judging by the stats, your Multiverse has lots of them. This should help us clear out the space, and if it works, it will allow your dimension to live and prosper.”

“But aren’t we supposed to destroy worlds? I thought we needed an Error?”

“You do.” Tail didn’t bother denying it. “But you don’t have one. And you don’t need to destroy AUs. In your Multiverse it’s the balance that matters — and it’s already broken. If you manage to get a new destroyer, it might help.”

“And what about you?”

“I’m doing just fine without you.”

The curt refusal from the black skeleton forced Ink to bite his tongue. Come to think of it, their own Error had been doing just fine without them as well. And he would’ve been fine, if it wasn’t for the dashing team of guardians, who had no idea what kind of trouble they were inviting in by interfering.

“So what do you need me to do?” Ink took a sip of sadness, which reflected in his tone.

Scar watched this with disgust written clearly on his face. He’d never had a sash with paints, since he didn’t need them. He did try the ones his alternates had on a few occasions — and each and every time he had to spend a long while getting rid of the taste in his mouth.

“You’ll be opening portals to wherever we tell you.” Tail stayed by Scar’s side. He had zero desire to exchange pleasantries with the resident of this Multiverse — and yet he practically exuded kindness and desire to help. “First things first, let’s try to merge the UnderFell worlds into one. Judging by the stats, there are loads of nearly identical universes that only differ in an aspect or two.”

“But those aspects are what makes the worlds unique,” Ink said, attempting to defend the AUs.

Scar snorted. “Unique? You have no idea what this word really means. The residents of these worlds are interchangeable puppets. One of these worlds might have green flowers, while the other one has red ones, or maybe the Sans is a horndog in this one, and a prude in the other one — but that doesn’t make the worlds all that different. The stories will have the exact same ending, only differing in a few dialogue lines here and there. That’s bullshit! Where’s that uniqueness you’re talking about?!”

Tail ignored the brewing argument between the two alternates. He was busy calculating the probability of a successful fusion.

“Don’t worry, Ink,” he said, breaking their argument. “Even if most of the worlds vanish, traces of them will live on inside the thoughts and feelings of the remaining characters. Sometimes, even some of the memories stay and merge with each other, and you get characters, who incorporate both of the former monsters inside them.”

Ink nodded, still unsure. He knew on a logical level that they needed to clear up some space inside the Multiverse — but he had trouble accepting it. He treasured every world, and it pained him to give them up.

“Here’s the list of the worlds you have to take us to.” Tail showed him a tablet.

Ink scanned the numbers first, but they meant nothing to him, so he switched his attention to the names and coordinates.

“Okay,” he said and opened a portal.

Fell universes varied greatly. In some the violence was all an act, and some had enough LV in them to move an onlooker to tears. Ink saw those differences — and he could even tell where that boundary between the worlds was, where one of them changed into another. He had no clue why his alternate and this new Error couldn’t see it. Those two were determined to merge something so varied into a single whole.

_Who does that???_

“Listen,” Scar addressed the artist, “we know better what to do and how. So just accept it and don’t resist. The days when it was up to you whether a universe should live or die, are gone.”

Tail looked at these two extremely different Inks and smiled joylessly: “He’s got a long way to go. If we manage to stabilize this Multiverse, he’ll continue to be its guardian. And errors...” His tail twitched nervously. “Well, they help us grow stronger.”

“Oh, look who’s talking,” Scar snorted. “Back when we found you, you were dying under the weight of your errors.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t die, and you two helped me grow stronger.”

Ink was about to ask what they were talking about, but he choked on his questions when he saw Tail’s magic. He had chains instead of strings, and they stretched out from his chest, not his eyes. The chains were quick to dig into the code of the world.

They paid a visit to every world on the list, and Tail left a bunch of his chains in every single one of them.

“Okay, one last question.” Scar fixed Ink with an intense look. “Is it painful for you when a world is destroyed? How strong is your connection to them?”

The odd question had Ink stumped for a moment, but he soon collected himself to answer: “It’s not really painful. It just makes me sad.”

The guests breathed out a sigh of relief.

“Thank stars,” Tail whispered and pulled on a bundle of chains.

About a hundred of Fell worlds were destroyed in a single moment. They simply ceased to exist. Ink thought he’d see a look of triumph on the black skeleton’s face, but Tail was staring at the floor, pretending not to care.

“Destruction really isn’t my cup of tea,” he said in the end, turning his attention to the code panel once again. “I won’t be surprised if we get one hell of a Frankenstenian result.”

“Don’t underestimate yourself.” Scar slapped his friend on the back in a show of support and almost knocked him over. Tail was extremely thin even by skeleton standards after all. He even looked like he only managed to remain upright thanks to the weight of his fifth limb.

It was hard to believe that this good-natured black skeleton with cat-like habits could actually beat a lot of destroyers with one hand behind his back. He was just too kind to let things escalate to a fight of that caliber though.

His friends only saw him infuriated _once_ , and they swore not to ever bring such terror upon themselves.

The lull in activity lasted long enough for Ink to give in and ask: “What are we going to do next?”

“We’re already doing something.” Scar brushed him off. “We’re waiting.”

Tail nodded, not taking his eyes off the numbers on the screen. Then, suddenly, he cried: “Hey! It started!”

He was instantly surrounded by his companions, who too stared at the numbers. Ink once again found himself unable to tell what the meaning behind them was, only recognizing the flickering names. He saw the fallen worlds reappear, one by one — only about a third of the initial number — and they all had weird, vague names full of symbols and numbers.

“Wow.” Scar whistled. “Will this thing hold? It doesn’t look stable.”

“We’re about to find out.”

Something strange happened then. Most of these worlds collapsed like sloppy houses of cards, but six of them remained standing and gained intelligible names.

“Six is a pretty solid result.”

“Yep. Unless there’s a genocide in full swing inside them,” Tail noted sadly and opened a window to take a look at one of the fused worlds.

What he saw surprised all three of them.

Frisk was at Grillby’s, trying to get drunk. Whenever Grillby tried to refuse them a refill, alluding to them being a child, they threatened the barmen with Chara’s knife. Sans and Papyrus were at home, hugging each other and crying like babies. Toriel was inside Asgore’s throne room, beating her husband up with his own trident. The king was in too much of a shock to stop her. Undyne was in the process of resigning from the Guard because, as she put it, “screw that noise!” Alphys let all of the amalgamates out of the Lab. Mettaton announced on TV that everyone in the Underground saw a vision of the future that night, and no one liked it. He didn’t like it either, so he decided to leave his robotic body and once more embrace the life of a peaceful ghost, whose soul would be safe from demons’ hunger. The rest of the monsters were all in different stages of shock.

The same-ish kind of thing was happening in the rest of the worlds.

“Welp, it seems like all the inhabitants gained the memories of the destroyed worlds. Now they’re going to digest this knowledge for a while as they figure out how to go on. Their stories will radically change. Besides, now the worlds have enough material to form a strong core, so the story won’t stop once the Monsterkind reaches the surface. It can keep going now.” Tail concluded.

Ink stared at his guests in surprise: “Wait, what?”

“What did you expect?!” Scar piped up. “Tail isn’t a destroyer. He’s an editor — which, ideally, is what every Error is supposed to become under the right circumstances. His job is to judge the worlds.”

Tail frowned and thumped his fifth limb against the floor in displeasure. He didn’t like bearing the title of a judge. “I don’t like doing this, but I will if I have to,” he said and opened a panel with a new list of universes.

The same thing happened with every list Tail pulled up: He destroyed the worlds. A small part of them restored themselves. Their inhabitants — a varying amount of them — inherited the memories of their various alternates from various universes. The stories of the worlds changed. The worlds grew larger.

Ink’s only job was to open portals, so he quite rightfully felt useless. He also felt as if a committee came to check on his work and found it lacking. Well, of course it was: it took a special kind of negligence to mess up a prospering Multiverse this much!

Ink wasn’t the only one struggling. Negative was guarding the pathway, and Dream couldn’t pass up this chance to come and ask his alternate self _what had happened to him_.

Negative knew that his alternate was fussing about somewhere in his general vicinity, struggling to gather his courage and ask someone so similar to himself about his past. At last, the struggle came to an end as Dream, apparently, decided to face the truth.

“Can I ask a question?” Dream walked into the room with his hands in the air.

“Wondering whether you can put your hands down? Yes, you can. Or have you forgotten that _you_ are perfectly capable of reading emotions and always know for sure whenever someone has a sinister motive? Relax. I know you mean us no harm. Besides, you wouldn’t be able to do a thing, so don’t even try.”

With the condescension of a powerful king approached by an uninvited peasant, Negative tried to turn his sneer into a smile. His way of speaking reminded Dream of Nightmare so much it made his chest ache.

“Oh wow.” Negative kept jeering. “Like so many of our kind, you feel sorry for your brother dearest. Right.”

The guest’s smile turned even less pleasant: slimy, like a drowned man’s body.

Dream felt a strong desire to leave the room and run away, but he fought the urge down and forced himself to take a seat on a nearby chair. He looked at his alternate self with determination in his eyes and finally asked:

“I wanted to ask: What made you this way?”

“What way?” Negative pretended not to understand the question, leaving Dream to flounder for a bit before he found the right words.

“What made you similar to Nightmare?”

“We’re twins. It’s no wonder we look similar. Besides, we’re also Sanses, so we look like all the other Sanses…”

“Why do you have tentacles like he does?!” Dream snapped, raising his voice, “Why are you covered in negativity?! Why aren’t you the guardian of positivity anymore?!”

Negative’s smile turned even nastier: “Do you really want to know?”

The guardian of positivity responded with a confident nod.

Negative bared his soul then. It was black on one side and shining with gold on the other, perfectly balanced between good and evil.

“But how?”

Negative held his tongue. He knew what consequences careless oversharing could lead to. He was fully aware that a single answer from a creature as powerful as he was could be misinterpreted into a call to action — and then… Oh, Void have mercy on them.

The sludge-covered skeleton stopped smiling and frowned. He couldn’t help but think back to that ill-fated day and the decision he’d made. He remembered the taste of the black apple — his brother’s soul — and a shadow of sorrow fell over his face.

However, he was quick to reign in his feelings and growl: “Not for good reasons, of that I can assure you. And I don’t suggest you choose to do something like this either. Now shoo! I’m tired of this chatter! You’re just standing there, all decked in gold — and no one really knows what a scumbag is hiding underneath it.”

Dream clenched his teeth, and his eyelights vanished. The truth stabbed him right in the soul. He didn’t move from the spot though, and he had no intention of repenting for his sins in front of his alternate. He came here to ask for help — and he was ready to forgo his positive nature to get it. The shadow of a smile slipped off his face, and a grim mask took its place. He had no idea how to push the conversation with someone so abrasive in the right direction, but he knew the weaknesses he could exploit. All of them were the ones he possessed himself after all.

“So does this mean that your brother is dead?”

“My whole Multiverse is dead!” Negative barked. His tentacles grew, sharpened and writhed like enraged snakes. Negative blew up, emotions spilling out of him like boiling water from a pot. “Everyone is dead! Not a single person who has a home ever chooses to live in Zero Infinity, because no matter what you do Zero Infinity will never become a home to you! That dimension is a torture chamber!!! I wish I knew who’s the smartass upstairs, watching us suffer as we search for meaning! And, oh, one day I’ll find out! And then they’ll regret ever being alive!!!”

Dream turned into a shivering ball of stress, cowering in his seat as if he expected an attack. And he _was_ being attacked — not with tentacles but with negative emotions. They scorched and stung and scalded him, and soon he was all beaten up and burned — injured even — but he still didn’t dare abandon this conversation. He didn’t dare let go of this chance to have his brother back.

“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice hollow. “And I can see that you are too. And even though I know nothing about Zero Infinity, I can tell that it’s an awful place to be. So I feel bad for you.

“But you’re a Dream, just like me — or rather, you were one — so you know how important my brother is to me. I’m sure yours was important to you as well. And that’s why I want to ask you to meet Nightmare and talk to him. Maybe, he’ll come around? Maybe, there’s still a chance for me to get him back?”

Negative still exuded hatred, but Dream’s request had him calming down. He was going to deny it at first — this wasn’t his problem! — but then he remembered his past self: a naive idiot who always tried to stay positive. Not much had changed. He was still an idiot, and he still remained optimistic: otherwise, why did he even consider helping this Dream? But his former self too wanted to get his brother back — or mend their relationship at least. And — oh Void Almighty — back then he would’ve gladly given up his soul if his older self showed up and offered to help him with Nightmare.

Negative looked at Dream with fresh eyes. He didn’t see his annoying past in the guardian anymore. Instead he saw himself staring at his savior with hope in his eyes. There he was, an adolescent still capable of believing in fairy tales. The golden apple, still true and untainted, was glimmering inside this guardian’s chest. This Dream didn’t have to fall into the abyss of the choice where none of the possible options promised a happy ending.

Negative felt a compelling need to save this Dream, keep him exactly the way he was — the way kids feel compelled to preserve their belief in Santa. He felt something inside him light up like a warm smile. Perhaps, it was his past self, buried deep inside his soul — the one that helped Scar when he was drowning in guilt, and assumed responsibility for Tail. _He was still here._

“Fine. I’ll pay your brother a visit once Scar takes over the guard duty.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to [Neutralcybertrn](https://twitter.com/Neutralcybertrn) for beta-reading this chapter!

As Ink escorted the guests throughout the Multiverse, he watched them work, and he couldn’t hold back the pang of envy at the relationship these two had. At first he suspected them of being a couple, but he soon realized how wrong he was. There was something a lot stronger than love between them. They shared their past, their pain and tribulations — and they’d gone through it all together, supporting each other. All three of them. The duo Ink was accompanying kept habitually searching for their missing friend with their eyes and got upset every time they couldn’t find him.

Scar and Tail spent most of this time together, barely leaving each other’s side, and yet kept their distance from their guide. This left Ink struggling to find a moment to talk to Tail in private. He could already tell that talking wasn’t going to get him anywhere, but he had to at least try asking whether this Error would stay in their Multiverse.

The answer was obvious. No, he wouldn’t.

But maybe he could still be persuaded to reconsider?

Ink got his chance when they reached the area occupied by branches of the most dysfunctional universe of all: HELP_tale.

“I’m gonna go check it out. Ink, if anything happens to Tail while I’m gone, I’ll rip your head off!”

Ink dutifully opened a portal into the world in question — and was left alone with the black skeleton. It all happened so fast that at first the guardian had no idea where to even start.

“Hey,” he finally called out to Tail, who was busy working with the flickering lines of code.

“Hm?”

“I wanted to ask—”

Tail didn’t let him finish: “...whether I’d want to stay in your Multiverse. No, I would not.”

“But why?” Ink was filled with indignation. “Why don’t all three of you stay here? We—”

“You’ve made a mistake, and now you’re paying for it,” Tail remarked icily. “Besides, don’t you normally stay out of the worlds’ development, just like other Inks? Well, the residents of Zero Infinity stay out of others’ business too — unless they’re asked to get involved. And sure, we _could_ stay if we wanted. But we don’t want to. Not together, and definitely not apart.”

“But why? You’ll finally have a home!”

Tail blindsided him with: “We don’t need it. We already have everything we need. And you already have everything _you_ need — both good and bad. In other words, since it’s you who messed this up, _you_ get to fix this!”

Ink had nothing to say to that. He felt lost. Tail’s words were full of painful truths. However, this did nothing to quell Ink’s attempts to convince the black skeleton to stay. After all, he did hear the guests say that unless this Multiverse got itself an Error, sooner or later it would end up on the brink of disaster again.

“I’m the one responsible for what’s happening now! I admit it! It’s my fault! But why do the regular people get to take the fall for my mistakes?! They simply want to live their lives in peace!”

The black skeleton rubbed the bridge of his nose wearily, smacked the floor with his tail and fixed Ink with a sorrowful look.

“My Multiverse perished because I wasn’t doing my job well enough. I was too kind, tried to compromise, couldn’t be made to destroy a thing without a good kick to the butt and doubted my own usefulness. Everyone I cared about died because of it. My spinelessness killed them. So I thought.” His weak smile exuded despair. “It took me a long time to realize it wasn’t my fault. Every resident of the Multiverse could’ve done something. The fate of their home hinged on every single one of them. Yet they idled — either out of stupidity or out of ignorance. They tried to stop me because they believed their worldview was the only right one.” His eyes filled with a haze of pain. “My sins are great, for I am weak-willed. But I carry my sins with me! It’s hard, but I’m still moving forward.

“And unless you want to turn out like me one day, pull yourself together and do everything that’s in your power instead of relying on help from opportune guests. We can only help a little, but the rest of the work should be done by the residents of the Multiverse. You said that they ‘simply want to live’. But it’s never simple — and a lot of trouble can be brought by inaction. That I am certain of.”

Tail returned to scanning through the code, and Ink knew for certain that he’d failed. He wouldn’t be able to talk this strange Error into staying.

“By the way,” Tail suddenly spoke again, “what happened to your Error? What kind of accident?”

The guardian didn’t get to answer, since Scar chose that moment to make his return.

“Wow, that place was a blast!” He was covered in dust, blood and sweat, sporting the widest of grins on his face.

“Ew!” was Tail’s succinct reaction. “Perhaps you shouldn’t have gone genocide on them?”

“Perhaps I shouldn’t have, but it’s more fun that way.”

Ink looked at his alternate with terror in his eyes: “Did you overdose on red?”

“Red? As in paint?” Scar brushed those concerns aside. “I don’t drink it.”

“Scar has a soul,” Tail clarified.

As soon as Ink heard that, he threw up. The news hit him like a ton of bricks, crushing him and turning his thoughts to mush.

How could anyone act like _that_ if they had a soul?! The guardian had none — and this… this _creature_ had one! This evil, mutilated creature who might have destroyed his home with his own hands! How? Why?! This wasn’t fair!!!

“You have a soul, and you’re… like this?”

“Like what?” Scar’s grin turned even more unhinged.

Ink looked away. He didn’t have the words to describe it — and didn’t know what colours to drink to find some. Envy raged within him, trumping every other emotion. He was angry at fate’s injustice.

Then he drank some yellow and saw the guests’ fate in a different light.

Even though he had a soul, Scar still lost the fight for his home Multiverse. Even though he had a soul, he wasn’t able to remain positive and friendly. Even though he had a soul, he’d never been and he never would be the Ink of this Multiverse.

Ink suddenly realized that it must’ve been extremely painful for his alternate to lose everything, and it was probably extremely hard for him to find new reasons to live. And once he realized that, he drank pity instead of envy.

Once the guests were done merging the worlds, the Multiverse breathed easier, as if a cancerous tumor had been cut out of it. Even though the looming threat of death was still present, it would be able to live and grow freely for a little longer.

It was time for them to leave, but that’s when Negative dumped the news on them:

“Scar, guard the pathway. I need to go pay a visit to the local Nightmare, knock some sense into his brain. Tail, you’re with me — in case there’s coding to be done.”

Scar actually choked on ink: “Hey, I thought you had a thing about not getting involved in the brothers’ conflicts? What, figured you’d overlook your principles for once?”

Negative waved his hand at that — not to dismiss his friend, but to invite Dream to follow him.

Tail just shrugged and said, “Don’t miss us too much,” before leaving with them.

Scar and Ink were left alone. They fixed each other with a hostile look and hurried to occupy different corners of the room: Scar took the one closest to the machine, and Ink settled next to the coffee maker. The tension kept growing.

“How does Error put up with you?” Ink asked when the piercing glare of his alternate finally got to him.

“His name is Tail.”

“Sounds more like a nickname. Let me guess… It was your idea?”

“Think what you will. It’s not like it would matter. And he won’t stay here even if you fall on your knees before him, begging. And before you ask: No, there isn’t anything you can entice him with. Sex? Good luck with that: he’s asexual. Kindness? He already has that. Home? He’s used to being a stray cat. It’s actually a fun way to live, especially when you’re in good company.”

Ink sipped from disgust: “You’re talking about him as if he’s some kind of animal!”

“Perhaps, he _is_ a very cute animal that requires constant care and attention. However, he’s my friend first and foremost, and I’ll keep doing everything that’s necessary for his wellbeing.

“What happened to this world’s Error though? Spill it. Did you kill him? You did mention an accident. So care to tell me, who helped him fall off a cliff?”

Ink was silent, not speaking a word to shed any light on the circumstances of the glitch’s death. He refused to look Scar in the eyes, but the flicker of guilt in his expression was enough for Scar to come to certain conclusions. He’d made a mistake too after all — and he still blamed himself for it.

“Or perhaps, you didn’t kill him, but, say, locked him up instead?” Scar knew he was on the right track when Ink shuddered. “Oh! That’s quite a common scenario! One where instead of killing him, people capture him and keep him locked up, so that he wouldn’t be able to do his ‘dirty work’.

“I wonder how long it took for your Error to break. A month? A year? _A decade?_ ” Scar’s grin turned unhinged. “You kept him locked up for a _decade_? I’m kinda scared to ask what the prison was like — ‘cause I saw one through a window: That Ink chained his Error up inside a dark basement, and a year later the glitch was blind and crazy thanks to that ignorant cruelty.”

That’s when Blue interrupted their conversation by falling out of the portal and into the room. The young guardian looked like a roughened up sparrow: torn scarf, cracked bones, guilty expression. However, before the Inks could question it, he shocked them with a cry of:

“Error was kidnapped! Nightmare…”

Both Inks instantly wore the same look of terror on their faces. Scar’s thoughts instantly went to Tail, who wasn’t an easy person to kidnap. Besides, he had Negative with him at the moment, and that guy was more likely to bite off his own tentacles than let anyone hurt his friend.

Which meant that Blue was talking about a different black skeleton.

“Oh, sorry. Am I interrupting?” The young guardian finally noticed Scar and started to back away from him but was easily caught by the scruff and brought in front of Ink as proof that the artist had been lying.

“So, guardian… Do you mind clarifying a few things for me?”

“There was no basement.” Ink’s voice shook, exuding pain even without the paints’ influence. “We figured it was too cruel and put him to sleep. But he never woke up.”

At first Scar still held onto the hope that the guardian was talking about eternal sleep — as in death — but once the meaning behind these words reached him, his eyelights went through a hundred symbols — and all of them negative.

“You should’ve put him down like a dog then! Even _that_ would’ve been better!” Scar shouted, dragging the young guardian around with his shaking hand. Blue hooked his fingers into the suffocating noose of his scarf but was too terrified to move beyond that. “And you’re telling me that the sleeping beauty was taken by Nightmare? The _same Nightmare_ whose place Tail has just headed off to?”

Ink didn’t know most of the words that spilled out of Scar’s mouth then, and he did his best to commit those colourful expressions to memory. It was kind of upsetting that all of them were targeted at him.

Finally, Scar let go of the scarf, and Blue collapsed onto the floor. He didn’t get the time to catch his breath before he was once again pulled to his feet and shaken — by Ink this time:

“What happened?”

“I was watching Error just like you’ve asked,” Blue sobbed. “But then Nightmare showed up, accused us of lying to him about Error’s death and took his body away. He had Killer with him.”

Scar decided he was done with the guard duty, grabbed the idiot artist by the collar and ordered: “Open a portal to where they headed. Now! Tail can’t see what you’ve done to his alternate!”

“Why—?”

“Open it now!!! Idiots like you did something similar to him in the past, and ever since then he,” Scar faltered, trying to find the right words, “doesn’t react well when he sees a continuation to his story! And you!” He pointed at Blue. “Guard the pathway! If anything happens to it, I will personally take your Multiverse apart byte by fucking byte!”

A portal was created a moment later, and the Inks jumped though.

The portal took them to a world consumed by negative emotions. Nature itself changed to fit the aura of the place: the broken buildings and ashes of the dead had a backdrop of red skies, dried grass and misty air.

Scar and Ink paid no attention to their surroundings though. The portal took them to a place distant from Nightmare’s castle, and they had to get there as quickly as possible.

“So Tail comes from a world where they tried to put him to sleep?” the guardian asked while they were running.

“No, back in Tail’s Multiverse no one wanted to kill him or put him to sleep. That happened in a different Multiverse — one he was trying to help after he’d ended up in Zero Infinity. And that story ended poorly both for the Multiverse and for Tail. And that’s why I won’t let people like _you_ mess with his head. Not again! He deserves better than that!”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter: implied incestual feelings.
> 
> Special thanks to [Neutralcybertrn](https://twitter.com/Neutralcybertrn) for beta-reading this chapter!

Negative, Dream and Tail knocked on the castle door, but when no one deigned to respond, Negative simply broke it down.

“Knock-knock!” he sing-songed jokingly and walked in.

The guardian of positivity couldn’t believe this was happening. He had people helping him save his brother! He wanted to believe that Nightmare would become his former kind self and come back to DreamTale, come back home… come back to him. This hope was growing stronger with every step they took down the dark hallway.

The black skeleton was walking behind them, looking around nervously and wagging his tail like an angry cat. He felt as if there was something inside this castle that he wasn’t supposed to see, and the closer they got to the light at the end of the hallway, the stronger this feeling got.

The hallway took them to a spacious reception hall. The beat-up armchairs, couch and TV set it was furnished with looked extremely out of place. So did the fridge in the corner.

All three visitors stood still for a minute, taking in the strange interior design, and didn’t immediately notice someone lying on the couch. That “someone” turned out to be Killer, who looked exhausted for some reason. The murderer could barely keep his eyes open and focused on the TV screen, and he failed to notice the newcomers.

Negative frowned. He was hoping to get a stronger reaction to his epic entrance. He walked over and stood in front of the TV. Killer finally deigned to pay attention to the guest, though he must’ve been running low on brain cells, because he didn’t realize who was standing before him:

“Nightmare? Aren’t you with Error?”

The smirk slowly slipped from Negative’s face, and his eyelights vanished. How could he be with Error, if the Error of this world was dead? Wasn’t he?

His shocked gaze first turned towards the deathly pale Dream, then the bewildered Tail, and finally returned back to Killer.

“And where am I right now?”

“The farthest room way down that hallway, the last door to the left.”

Tail tore off in that direction. He didn’t seem to hear his friend’s loud “Stop!”

Dream was gasping as he tried to say something, but Negative didn’t have time to listen to whatever he had to say, dashing down the hallway, hoping to catch Tail before he saw something that pulled the rug from under his feet.

Negative could still remember how bad it could get.

He didn’t get there in time. His outstretched hand caught nothing but air, and the long tail disappeared behind the corner. Pushing the door open, the black skeleton looked inside to witness a suffocating image of his own past.

_Naive and stupid, he decided to help a Multiverse once. He figured that since he hadn’t managed to keep his own Multiverse safe, he should respond to a call for help and save another one. He thought that it would help him deal with his trauma and move on with his life._

_But he was tricked._

_The world that required his assistance was inhabited with power-hungry monsters. All they needed was a puppet that would kill people for them and destroy the worlds they considered useless._

_Tail became that puppet._

_He was asleep, stuck in a nightmare where he killed and destroyed. But that’s not who he was! He never wanted this! His job was to edit things, not exterminate and erase them!_

_Sometimes he would wake up and thrash like a possessed puppet — and then Nightmare would crush him in his embrace and say:_

_“You can’t escape, you fool. You don’t belong to yourself anymore.”_

_That nightmare of pain and blood seemed to go on forever… Until one day Tail gave up._

_“If you want to see me as a beast, I will become one.”_

_...that Multiverse ceased to exist._

Tail saw himself — his alternate self — in Nightmare’s arms and remembered everything that had happened to him back then: he remembered the nightmare that turned out to be a cruel reality.

His eyelights flared, screaming “danger”; his teeth changed, growing sharper like a predator’s; the long tail grew a sharp spike at its end. Right now no one would’ve thought to call this black skeleton cute or amicable — only deadly.

“Stop!” Negative got there just in time to catch Tail with his tentacles and pull him into the hallway. He put his friend down in front of him, forced him to meet his eyes and asked: “What’s your name?”

Tail twitched. He suddenly realized he didn’t know the answer to that. Confused, he looked at his friend and shook his head.

“Do you remember who I am?”

“Nega… Negative?” His voice cracked.

“That’s right. What’s your name?”

“I don’t know.”

“What did we call you?”

Tail glanced at his fifth lim and smiled weakly: “Sorry. I kind of lost it there.”

While those two were busy sorting things out in the hallway, Dream slipped inside the room. He saw his brother holding Error in his arms, and his face twisted with a grimace of pain. “Brother?”

Nightmare was in his original form — no sludge, no stifling aura — and he looked _broken_.

“Well-well-well,” the prince of nightmares said wearily. “Storming the castle, I see? Congratulations, brother. You’ve captured us. Are you going to put me to sleep the way you did it to him?” Nightmare stroked the black skeleton on the head affectionately, looked at Error’s serene face and smiled with the corners of his mouth.

“Listen, I…”

Dream took a step forward, and Nightmare suddenly held the sleeping skeleton closer. Fear shone inside his eyes.

“Get out!”

“Brother… I…” Dream took another step forward.

Nightmare only held Error even closer and screamed: “Don’t get any closer!” He seemed to be trying to shield the sleeping skeleton with his body while also keeping his eyes on the threat — which happened to be his supposedly kind brother.

“He told you to stay away!”

This voice made Dream freeze and quiver. It was too alien, too frightening — a voice he’d never heard before and would’ve loved not to ever hear at all. It sounded as if it came right out of the depths of the darkest nightmare and brought its master with it. Dream was too terrified to turn around and face the person this voice belonged to. Sweat dotted his spine, a drop of it running down his temple.

“Tail! Chill! This is not your concern! You don’t want to be a judge, right?!”

Unlike Dream, Nightmare saw the owner of the terrifying voice, and he pressed himself against the back of the couch, suddenly losing any confidence he had in his ability to strike fear into people’s souls. Someone much more terrifying had already taken the top spot in that particular leaderboard.

The red eyes burned like embers. The black bones looked like they were pulled straight out of a bonfire from the depths of Hell. The demonic image was completed by the horrifying grin full of sharp teeth. Nightmare failed to recognize another Error in this beast. He didn’t even notice the alternate Dream next to this furious black skeleton.

That’s when Scar and Ink made their appearance. Ink froze in fear at the sight of Tail, but Scar fearlessly rushed to his friend’s side. So what if he looked different? He slapped Tail in the back of his head with so much force that the black skeleton almost face-planted onto the floor.

“Thought I’ve told you to chill! Or do you need to be ordered around like a dog? Then _down, boy_!”

“Scar, what the hell?!” Tail cried in indignation. His appearance was no longer fear-inducing, and his voice returned to a more familiar timbre.

“You’re the one who asked to punch you hard should you lose it.”

Only now did Tail realize just how much he’d frightened everyone and shrunk up. “Sorry.”

“Nah, it’s me who’s sorry, pal.” Scar embraced his friend. “I shouldn’t have left you alone even for a minute.”

Tail shook his head. He was the only one at fault here: He was a big boy and he should’ve been able to handle his problems on his own. It wasn’t the others’ fault that he couldn’t.

Negative patted the editor on the head as if he was a troublesome child. He was finally able to take stock of what was happening in this room and draw some conclusions.

A Nightmare who was scared of his Dream and protected his Error… Now, this was sure a thought-provoking sight to behold.

“Hey, guys? What do you say?”

What _was_ there to say? Being outsiders, they saw what was going on and cringed. There were no longer any questions as to who needed saving in this situation. The guests were quick to stand between the brothers, blocking Dream’s path.

“I think I’m starting to realize why your Multiverse is in deep shit.” Negative crossed his arms.

Shocked and exhausted, Nightmare was struggling to get a grasp on reality. Perhaps, he was hallucinating thanks to the lack of sleep and major magic loss? What else could this be? He just saw himself and Error break into his room with a mutilated Ink in tow, and all three of them decided to protect him from Dream. That _had_ to be a hallucination.

Nightmare put all of his powers and the powers of his whole team into waking Error up — but he failed. The black skeleton was still trapped in eternal sleep, lying in his lap unaware that he’d wake up soon, and it would be the scariest awakening of his life.

Ink was the last one to enter the room. Bewildered, he looked at his friends and his enemies, no longer sure which ones were which. He finally realized what had been going on, and this knowledge shocked him so badly that the guardian barely held back from smacking Dream on the head, hard.

“How could you?” he forced out.

Dream looked away.

“It wasn’t an accident, was it?” Ink’s voice shook. “You put Error into an unwakeable sleep on purpose, didn’t you? It’s not that he didn’t want to wake up — it’s you who didn’t want him to wake up. Dream, do you even realize what a horrible thing you’ve done?”

Dream whispered under his breath: “It’s just that all of a sudden Nighty fell in love with him. With that horrible destroyer. Not with me.”

Nightmare fixed his brother with a look of a cornered animal, sparks of terror flickering in his eyes. The rest of the people in the room had mixed feelings — ranging from disgust to pity — towards the guardian of positivity, who found himself unable to find happiness and drowned in the sea of mistakes he’d made.

Dream burst into tears and rushed out of the room. No one followed him.

Tail saw the two skeletons on the couch in a new light. He no longer soaw the horrors of his past in them. Now they were just a couple of lovers, whose fate was torn to shreds by their jealous rival.

He wasn't angry and had no desire to throw accusations. He did see a new target though, and he headed for it with the confident gait of a predator. Tail walked up to Nightmare, who cringed under the weight of the glowing, red-eyed gaze.

“You’re broken. You’re lost. You’ve lost so much and got nothing but pain in return. This doesn’t seem fair. Do you want to restore justice?”

Scar was about to rush forward, but Negative stopped him and wrapped a tentacle around his mouth, whispering: “You’ll make things worse if you stop him.”

He also gestured to Ink just so the artist would know what he’d do to him, if he interfered.

Meanwhile, Nightmare was looking Tail over, surprised and not quite sure what kind of demon he had standing before him. He did recognize a few familiar features, but simply couldn’t see an alternate Error in the guest. He still wasn’t sure he wasn’t just hallucinating the other. What if all of this was just a dream? Well, if it was one, then he’d rather make sure it was a good one — so Nightmare replied with: “Please, help him, if you’re able to. I’ll do anything.”

“I don’t need anything from you.” The black demon pointed at Error. “Error has what I want, and he’s going to wake up the moment it’s gone. But he’ll be extremely sad and hurt when he does, so after I take it from him, be sure to stay with him.”

“What exactly are you planning to take from him?”

“His dream.” Tail’s smile was full of sadness. “This dream that’s beautiful like a summer, viscous like a swamp and bright like the sun — the dream he loves so much. It’s been holding on to him and slowly killing him for years now. It’s because of this dream that he cannot return to reality. Will you let me have his dream? Are you ready to pay the price of your lover's pain and tears?”

Nightmare looked even more weary and ill than before when he answered: “Yes. Take his dream. It’s impossible to deal in dreams your whole life. Sooner or later, we have to face reality and accept the pain the world brings us.”

Tail nodded, sat on the floor next to the couch, wrapped his tail around himself and called his friend over: “Negative, I need you help.”

The negative Dream tsked and walked up to his friend.

“Did he use the ‘kingdom of dreams’ on him?” Tail asked.

“Yes.” Negative frowned.

Pulling Error out of the kingdom of dreams would be a pain: even ripping him out of stone would’ve been easier. Just like Nightmare said, it wasn’t possible to deal with dreams your entire life — but it was extremely easy to drown in them. That’s what happened to Error. In his dreams, he was living in the world he’d always dreamed of. Technically, he could wake up on his own, without any help, as long as he realized that he was dreaming. The problem was that giving up this dream turned out to be an impossible feat for him.

Tail looked at his alternate self. The black skeleton was so different from him — and yet, just like many other Errors, he was lost. However, this Error had someone who loved him waiting for him.

“Is the world he sees real?” Tail asked.

“Only for him.”

“But it’s like a Multiverse inside a Multiverse, right?”

“Yes… Are you about to do what I think you’re about to do?”

Tail’s smile was sad as he answered: “I’m about to do what I can. I’m going to devour his Multiverse — the one he’s dreaming of.”

Scar clutched his head in horror at what he’d heard. He was by his friend’s side in a heartbeat, unable to hold back from crying out: “It’s not worth it! You said you didn’t want a repeat of that!”

Ink was listening to their conversation, but the meaning behind it was completely lost on him. He had no idea what kind of bullet his Multiverse had just dodged and just how dangerous of a person he had been trying to talk into staying.

Once in Zero Infinity, sooner or later you realized what your purpose was, and such residents _changed_. They lost a lot but gained a lot in return as well.

But Tail… He got stuck somewhere in the middle of that transformation because he found himself unable to accept the person he’d suddenly become.

“You shouldn’t…” Scar whined.

Tail smiled in response: “Believe me, I can do this. And I won’t even regret it. It’s just a dream, right?”

“Yes.” Negative smiled sadly. “It’s just a dream.” He touched his friend’s head, allowing him to enter his alternate’s kingdom of dreams. “But it’s a damn realistic dream, my friend.”

Tail’s body slowly slumped into Scar’s arms.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter: mentions of incestual feelings.
> 
> Special thanks to [Neutralcybertrn](https://twitter.com/Neutralcybertrn) for beta-reading this chapter!

“Negative, Void damn you, what have you done?”

“What I had to do,” Negative said and absent-mindedly looked at Nightmare, who still couldn’t boast a good grasp on reality and couldn’t truly wrap his head around the miracle that was happening — the very miracle he’d been praying for.

The lord of nightmares stared at Tail — who still looked like a demon straight out of Hell to him — Negative and Scar for a few minutes, noting the details he’d previously missed, and finally came to the obvious conclusion:

“It seems like you’ve come from afar.”

Instead of answering, Negative stepped closer to the alternate version of his brother and looked into his weary face, surprised at what he saw in it. He then gazed at the sleeping Error and asked:

“You do realize that positive feelings are killing you?”

“And negative ones don’t make me happy.” Nightmare chuckled bitterly. “You’re Dream? But you’re not my brother, right?”

Negative nodded: “You’re right: I’m not him, and we come from afar. We dropped by to clean up some shit here — and, apparently, we got this backwards. How long have you been neglecting your duties?”

“Since the guardians,” he glared at Ink, “put Error to sleep. Though I was under the impression that they killed him. So I dropped everything I was doing. Then, only recently, I found out that he was just asleep, and the moment they got distracted, I stole him. But I wasn’t able to wake him.” Tears fell from the eyes of the prince.

“Okay, I got the basics.” Negative’s voice rang like a taut string. “In this Multiverse my brother isn’t a total dick and actually kept his positive emotions. That’s good. Though I’m always surprised to see him paired up with Error.”

In the meantime, Scar was busy looming over Ink and threatening him with the sharp nib of his pen. Ink paid no attention to that though, too engrossed in beating himself up: after all, he _did_ fail to notice what had been happening right under his nose.

“I’m more surprised when they pair him up with me,” Scar growled, briefly distracted from what he was doing, and returned to threatening his alternate: “You have no idea what kind of shit you’ve dragged us into!” he roared at Ink. “Your mind is simply not capable of grasping the magnitude of this fuck-up, and it never will be! Because of you fucking idiots Tail is risking his mental stability more than ever before. And it’s all because of you!”

“I am so, _so_ sorry,” the guardian wheezed out. “I didn’t see what was eating Dream, didn’t notice Nightmare’s feelings, didn’t realize how important Error was for the Multiverse and the person who fell in love with him. I was so blind!”

Scar lowered his fountain pen and pinched the bridge of his nose:

“Ah, damn it. We’re so different yet so similar. I too failed to see the full picture when it mattered, made some errors and doomed everything I was fighting for. But you still have the time to fix your mistakes.”

“I’ll do my best, and I’ll work on fixing the mistakes I’ve made. Starting now.” Ink pulled himself together, drank some red and hurried off to find Dream. There was a long and heated conversation to be had.

This left only the two sleeping Errors, Nightmare — who was waiting for a miracle — and Scar and Negative — who were waiting intently for… something.

All of a sudden a bloodcurdling scream filled the room. The Error of this Multiverse was the one screaming. He arched, fell off the couch, dragging Nightmare with him, and continued to thrash on the floor. He was having a seizure, clawing at himself and leaving marks on Nightmare, who was struggling to hold the writhing body close.

It took a lot of effort on everyone’s part to keep Error from breaking himself and not break him in the process. Over the course of two hours, the guests had grown weary from the struggle, and Nightmare was all covered in bruises and scratches, as if someone had been kicking him around for a while.

Everything ended as abruptly as it had started. Error wheezed and went limp. In the time it took Nightmare to confirm the other wasn’t dead, he almost fainted from sheer panic.

While everyone was busy dealing with Error, they missed the moment Tail stirred and slowly got up, his red eyelights glowing. He looked dangerous and alien again, but he was quick to shake it off and smile as he asked:

“What did I miss?”

Scar instantly pulled his friend into a hug: “A little bit of everything,” he said. “How was it?”

“Tasty,” was Tail’s creepy conclusion. “But if you’re talking about Error, then it worked. He’ll wake up soon — and it’s best if he doesn’t see me after he wakes.”

Having said that, Tail fell straight through the code into hell knew where.

“Fucking awesome!” Scar growled but didn’t bother to follow his friend. He knew he wouldn’t find him: Tail was great at hide-and-seek, and Scar was never good at it. He didn’t even spare a glance at Error, who was slowly waking up, before heading off. Negative decided he was done here as well, so he followed his friend. Let the lovebirds figure things out themselves.

They came across Killer by the castle’s front door. He silently watched them leave, an odd look on his face, and closed the door behind them. The duo still needed a portal to take them to the pathway out of the Multiverse — and they needed a resident to create one. Luckily, all the screaming and explosions made two of the residents easy to find.

Ink and Dream were swearing like sailors, not bothering to mince words or sugar-coat things. Scar was actually enjoying the exchange up until he heard: “Why would someone even want to fuck their own brother — and their twin to boot?!” — and threw up ink.

“Okay, that’s enough of these idiots’ TMI,” Negative chuckled. “Scar, go play with your alternate while I have a heart-to-heart with mine.” Tentacles writhed behind his back — and there were way more of them than the usual four. His mouth turned into a toothy maw, and his eyes flared with fury.

Scar hurried to pull Ink out of his friend’s path and demanded a portal to a place as far away from here as possible: “I could do without seeing one Dream knocking some sense into another.”

Soon both Inks ended up back in the lab, where the pathway was — thankfully — still working. Blue greeted them with an overjoyed squeal of a guinea pig and buried them in questions:

“Are you okay? Did you find Error? Where’s the other Error and our Dream? And where’s the negative Dream? Oh, Ink, were you drinking red? Why do you two look so beat-up? Did Nightmare hurt you?” — and so on.

All of his fussing and questioning made Ink’s head hurt, so he asked: “Bring us some tacos. We’re starving.”

Excited, Blue immediately ran off home to get to cooking.

With him gone, Ink finally unleashed his outrage: “God, I couldn’t have even imagined… Was Dream really trying to get rid of a rival?! When did his brotherly love turn into something so twisted?!”

“I don’t know,” Scar spat out irritably. This wasn’t something he wanted to discuss. “I don’t give a damn. The only thing I care about right now is us returning to Zero Infinity. We’re done here. Your Multiverse will soon go back to normal. You can handle your Dream yourself.”

“Are you sure your Dream won’t hurt him?”

Scar barked out a laugh: “Oh, he _will_. But he doesn’t _enjoy_ dealing with such alternates either. After all, there’s a reason every version of Dream turns out this way or that — which means that such an idea must’ve arisen inside Negative’s soul too at some point. However, he managed to handle it — unlike your friend. Unless he’s not your friend anymore?”

“Despite everything that’s happened, Dream is my friend.” The effects of the red pain wore off, and Ink sipped a bit of yellow. “But I guess I wouldn’t have been able to accept his mistakes so readily if I wasn’t soulless. Tell me, is it hard, having a soul?”

Scar had no idea how to answer. He felt that if it hadn’t been for this particular organ, his life would’ve gone down a much less tragic route. He wouldn’t have made so many shameful emotional decisions and ultimately doomed his Multiverse.

It took a bit more time, but Ink finally cooled off, and that’s when he started to worry about his mess-of-a-friend’s fate.

He chanced a glance through a dimensional window and saw the guardian of positivity bawling his eyes out while Negative was trying to calm him down. The negative Dream might’ve seemed harsh, rude and abrasive, but he still remained a person capable of drawing someone out of the darkness even after consuming the black apple.

“Are you two okay?” Ink asked.

Negative sighed deeply — _Does it look like we are?_ — and addressed his alternate: “Quit crying. Everything is going to be okay.”

Before long, both Dreams and both Inks were doing their best not to get food poisoning from tacos, while Blue screamed in joy. He’d managed to force the details of what had happened, though the kid wasn’t as concerned with Dream’s guilt as he was with Tail’s disappearance.

“So your friend’s somewhere out there, and you’re _just sitting here_?!” he cried, outraged.

“Yep.” Scar nodded. “It’s no use searching for him. He’ll come back when he feels like it.”

“He needs a breather to get his thoughts back to order.” Negative nodded.

“But aren’t you worried about him?” Blue asked in surprise.

The guests shared a look and smirked: “You who should be worried about your Multiverse instead.”

Scar messed around with the taco he was holding in his hands and put it back on the plate. He’d had enough of risk-taking today.

“You have no idea how badly this could’ve ended. Every time people like us — residents of Zero Infinity — visit a Multiverse, they run a huge risk of changing. I’m not talking about scars, death or something of that kind, no. I mean something more integral. And I’m scared that my friend won’t ever be the same.” Scar looked away. “In Zero Infinity, there’s a creature that everyone is terrified of — the age-old Nothing! It devours Multiverses. It’s an endlessly lonely, quiet, asocial creature that travels through clusters.

“But no one knows about Tail. No one will name him something scary as long as he stays with us. No one will hate him as long as he’s still capable of smiling. Because we don’t let him become such a creature. We don’t let him repeat the fate of the infamous Butterfly. We won’t let him become yet another creature that’s lost their path. Because we’re his friends — and he means the world to us.

“Though, to be honest, we’re just delaying the inevitable. Tail isn’t even a wayfarer anymore. He’s so far away from us — and one day he’ll get even farther away, and we won’t be able to catch up with him anymore.”

A deathly silence fell upon them. Tears trickled down from Scar’s only good eye.

Scar wanted to get it off his chest. He wished he could turn into his former self — the one who could burst into tears and share his woes with the first person he met.

“Back when we first met him, he was so broken, so weak. We literally took him from his deathbed — though that’s something frowned upon in Zero Infinity. When we found him, he was turning to stone. This happens when you fall into despair while surrounded by darkness.

“And I… I stopped. I don’t know why, silly as it is. I’ve hated Errors my whole life. Never had a good relationship with the one I had back in my own Multiverse — and we had an all-out _war_ ever since he mutilated me. Negative has always been indifferent towards destroyers as well. But here… we simply couldn’t leave.

“I don’t know how long we stood there in the darkness, keeping a pathlighter on a short leash — maybe it was years? — but the stone eased off him, and we were able to take him to a habitable zone.

“We shook some life into him later. It took a lot of coaxing and many a kick in the butt — but we forced him to keep on living. And we were rewarded with him _thriving_. He turned out to be a kind, cheerful, amicable guy. A fussy one. Even sort of cute. All of the sudden he became the glue that holds our trio together.” A smile bloomed on Scar’s face — the same kind of smile Ink wore. “Even Negative and I got closer thanks to him.

“We learned who he was and who he was afraid of becoming. Realized that he was trying to turn to stone out of his own free will. He wanted to die because he didn’t want to cause anyone any pain.

“But causing pain is normal.” His smile waned, turned forced. “We all cause it — be it out of ignorance or stupidity, on purpose or not. And the ones who experience pain, grow stronger, proving their right to exist, or break, failing to live up to what was expected of them. This is fair both for people and for worlds. Multiverses. Clusters. Wayfarers. And for the creatures they turn into. As sad as it sounds, all of us have to fight for our lives, overcoming obstacles and proving our worth. That’s something I believe in.”

Everyone was silent as they listened to this sudden confession, coming each to their own conclusions. Even Negative ended up pondering something.

The silence remained unbroken until Tail popped up out of nowhere: “Are you ready to leave?”

“Of course!” Scar and Negative instantly headed towards the pathway.

“Are you going home?” Blue looked disappointed at not getting a chance to get to know his alternate friends better.

Scar shrugged: “We don’t have a home. You’re all going to be okay now. And we don’t belong here. So we’ll just be on our way once more.”

Before leaving, Tail called out to the residents: “Good luck! Don’t forget to close the pathway, or you might get a visit from someone a lot less friendly.”

The guests stepped into the dark maw of the pathway into Zero Infinity.

Only once they were out of the alien Multiverse did Scar risk asking Tail: “Are you okay?”

“No,” the black skeleton confessed and smiled lopsidedly. “But I’ve never been okay. So it’s fine. I’m still _me_.”

Scar responded with a sad chuckle, while Negative let out a heavy sigh:

“We’re not visiting any other Multiverses any time soon. These adventures come at too high a cost.”

***

Meanwhile, inside Nightmare’s castle, a real-life melodrama was in full swing. There was crying and hugging, then screaming, arguing, crying and hugging once again. Even Error did his best to express his joy despite all the glitching and the error messages.

“You’re nuts!” Killer took one look at what was happening inside the room and returned to the living room to get back to watching TV.

Nightmare managed to fit the story of the miraculous salvation into a couple of sentences, but even that was enough to push Error into a reboot.

“Thank stars, I didn’t get to see two Inks at once. One’s already too many!”

At the mention of another version of himself, however, Error froze for a while, and even after he got unstuck, it took a while before he managed to say something. The glitch hugged himself, rambling feverishly about a horrible monster who knew no mercy as he _devoured_ the world.

“There was nowhere to hide from him, no way to stop him. He left nothing behind, not even a void. ...Do people actually think of me as such a beast?”

Nightmare shook his head.

“It was a dream, Error. Just a dream.”

“A nightmare?”

“Yes, a nightmare. But it’s over. And everything will be okay from now on.”

Their Multiverse got a chance for a better future.


End file.
